Wrongs Darker than Blackest Night
by Ember Koramin
Summary: The night the Jedi Temple burned, from Darth Vader's POV. Very dark, very tragic. Or so I've been told. I tried my best to make it that way.


_more subdued thn usual, an **Author's Note**: I've been wanting to write this for a while, but I wasn't sure how well I could write something that I wanted to be really dark. Let me know how well I did or didn't do please. _

Wrongs Darker than Blackest Night

Coruscant was a city of night. Though it looked majestic in daylight, most of the life on the teeming planet came out during nocturnal hours, whether because of species' internal clocks, late nights of business or fun, or less savory activities.

Lights glowed and flashed from nearly every surface, yet shadows still found room to travel and spread in pools of liquid onyx amid alleyways and lower streets. Forms scurried from cover to cover, hiding in the dark, hiding in their own solitude. Shadows gave life to the darkness; gave breath to the doubt and death and despair that would fill those sections. There was a shadow over the moon that night.

The Jedi Temple had lights lit inside, and spotlights ignited at the exterior of the doors, playing over vast statues of legendary force wielders. The lights in the great entrance hall spilled outside to illuminate the darkness of the stairway, as though to signify to the galaxy that this was a place of safety, of welcome, of enlightenment. Where darkness found the reaches of systems far from the light, where despair stood blocking the sun from the candle glow of the planets, the Temple and its inhabitants were there, ready, as a beacon in the night. _We stand between the candle and the star._

The light on the steps never wavered, never faltered. It shone straight and bright and proud, defying the darkness to quench it. It defied the darkness to claim the people inside it, or to attempt to take the surrounding area. The Temple stood tall amongst the other building, towering over the city and showing the way. It was warm that night, the seasons of the city planet just changing to blooming season.

The stars were obscured, as if by clouds.

A dark and hooded man waited just inside of an entrance to a coarse looking building. Low-slung and dull grey, it gave function and form to the people inside it. There was no decoration inside or out; there was no need of it. Troopers did not need adornments, save those to identify group leaders. A uniformed sergeant came to meet the man.

"Sergeant," stated the man. He did not ask for a name, and the soldier did not offer one. Names were only designations for who, and who was but form following function. They _were_ function, the clone troopers were. Sleek, deadly function that needed no further proof of its identity.

"General. We are ready to follow your orders," he replied. There was no hesitation in his voice. It is unsure whether the hooded man noticed this or not, or if he even cared.

"Good," was all he said in return.

Fifty fighters followed him into the darkness. Marching onward into the night, they passed by shadows and darkened doorways, ignoring the chill and the heavy way the air filled the lungs of the living. It was certain that the hooded man did not notice how the night pressed down upon them. He had vowed not to.

The light of the Temple loomed up before them slowly, growing ever bigger in the sky. The light was blithely unaware what approached it that night. It sensed nothing unusual. It could never have predicted what was taking place. It filled their view, making it impossible not to focus on it, making it impossible to ignore what they were doing. If the troopers felt any unease at this, they did not show it. They had passed the point where they could turn around and leave that place. The hooded man did not ignore the future. He had accepted it, embraced it. Calm was in him, like the center of a hurricane, like the stare of a cobra. His eyes gleamed yellow beneath his hood, disrupting the scar that ran down one side of his face.

He strode up the steps without slowing, without pausing. He did not wait or waver or consider what was happening, except in the tightest analysis of situation. He was done considering, done wavering. He had done more than enough wavering already.

Figures inside the Temple were calm and relaxed. Many were walking to and from other areas, some readying to retire for the night. A group of apprentices and Knights were practicing in the center of the large entrance way. Their sabers flashed and sparked, swooping down for an attack or coming up in defense, steadily blocking while wielders moved and leaped for better positions. The figures paused in confusion upon seeing the hooded man stride into the hall, flanked by men loyal to the empire. Their senses did not match up, were not processing what was being seen. The confusion lasted only as long as it took for the troopers to get into firing position.

In less than a second the air was filled with blaster fire and the screams of the dying. Managing to draw lightsabers in time, a few leaped forward into the fray, cutting down the enemy with grace and precision. Fury and astonishment triggered adrenaline in the fighters, boosting strength and heightening already above par senses. But senses and swords mean little when confronted with numbers far greater and beam weapons from a distance. The Jedi began to fall.

Masters and Knights ran into the room from other parts of the Temple, rushing to save their comrades, their family. For a moment, it looked like they might pull back from the edge. The hooded man began his work then. Cutting down the teachers and defenders with a speed unheard of, he dispatched souls from hosts with brutal efficiency. He was slowed for only a few seconds when an opponent happened to carry extra skill.

A snarl of fury was on his lips when he engaged an elderly female Master in front of a door. They battled back and forth sporadically, besting each other in complexity and foresight. The Master was wearing down, staggered by the ferocity of his advancement. Her dark brown eyes were filled with tears of anger, and confusion.

He disarmed her with a jerk of his saber and grabbed her head in his hand, leveling the hissing red length at her throat. As he looked up to finish her life, her eyes met his, and the depth of them recalled memories.

"Why?" was all she said, before her head rolled across the gleaming marble in a fountain of blood.

And the man who had once been Anakin howled in rage and despair at the memory of starlit brown eyes comforting him in the darkness of the nursery, before bashing open the door she had guarded into the Council chambers, and the life that hid inside.


End file.
